David's Astronomy Pages Notes - Session 1434 (2026-05-29)

Notes (S1433)

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Notes (S1434)

	Session Aims & Highlights
	- Observing Result  - Night Summary Plot  - Session Event Log
	Operational Issues
	- Critical Issues (0),  Major Issues (0),  Minor Issues (2),  Small Defects (2),  Continuous Improvement (3)
	- Figures (0)
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Session Aims & Highlights (2026-05-29)

Main aims

1. Targets.  Acquire images of a selection of variable stars, nearby stars, comets & deep sky targets as allowed by sky conditions.
2. AstroMain. Check new AstroMain 3.82.6  version for any issues or problems following introduction of new ObservatoryPicture and Greenhouse Picture drawing routines.

 Equipment & Software

• 12" LX200 and ST-10XME
• 80mm APO and ZWO ASI 178MC
• TheSky6 6.0.0.65, CCDSoft5 5.0.201, DeviceHub 7.1.0.4707, MeadeGeneric 1.3.12.522, UPB 3, PulsarDome 6.4.0.0
• Peg-Unity 2.12, Peg-Focuser 2.12, Peg-Switch 2.12, TCF-LSI 3.3.5
• SharpCap 3.2.6482, PHD2 2.6.14, Siril 1.4.2, deCONZ 2.18.2, ASCOM 7.1.0.4707
   
• AstroMain 3.82.6, AstroPlan 1.47, AstroShCap 0.0, AstroGuard 1.13.2
  AstroMag 1.5.12, AstroVOE 2.0, AstroSN 1.16, AstroProtect 1.7, AstroMove -
  AstroAllSky 3.27.10, AstroWeather 1.30.3, AstroObsCam 1.13.1, AstroNorthCam 1.8.2, AstroLaunch 1.14.9

Highlights

• Targets. 9/9 planned targets were completed with x targets partially completely. Other targets failed due to cloud / session suspensiion
•  AstroMain. AstroMain 3.82.6. version operated ok just a minor teething problem related to creating Greenhouse Picture..
•  Dome. No issues open/closing shutter. Dome was successfully parked at the end of the session.

Notes

• .

Summary Plots & Logs

Observing Plan

Observing Result

Dome & Scope Slewing Performance

Slew/Centering Performance

Guiding Performance

Sky Conditions (Locate Frames)

Night Sky Summary Plot Top axis: Sky Brightness at Zenith (in ADU/s) Lefthand axis: Local Time (hh LT). Righthand axis: Sun Altitude (degs) Note:  The NorthCam Star Count line is unreliable and should be ignored (The AstroNorthCam 'Find' Star method is producing many false positives from clouds)

Actual Weather vs Pre-Session Weather Forecast

Session Event Log

Session Alerts & Alarms

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Operational Issues (2026-05-29 S1434)

• Critical Issues (0)
• Major Issues (0)
• Minor Issues (2)
• Small Defects (2)
• Continuous Improvement (3)
• Figures (0)
  

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Critical Issues

• None

Major Issues

• None

Minor Issues

• 'Greenhouse Picture' isn't being generated by AstroMain. Greenhouse Pictures are expected to be generated by AstroMain every 30s, but following a change to how Observatory and Greenhouse Pictures are drawn in AstroMain 3.82.6 the Greenhouse Pictures are not being generated. Investigating showed that a critical line to create new GreenhousePicture object hadn't been included in 'ObsViewer.on_load' handler.  Fixed in AstroMain 3.82.7 by the addition of the necessary line.
  Fixed  2026-05-30 (AstroMain 3.82.7)
   
• Current Session Web Page is not showing hyperlinks to Session Errors, Session Notes and Session Images. The issue was caused by the hosting provider (JustHost/BlueHost) returning corrupted or double-compressed HTTP HEAD responses for certain files. Although the files themselves were valid and could be opened normally with a browser (GET requests), HEAD requests were being processed through a different internal caching/compression layer that produced invalid or stale metadata. This resulted in browser errors such as ERR_CONTENT_DECODING_FAILED, causing the JavaScript logic that relied on HEAD to incorrectly conclude that the file did not exist or was empty. The solution was to stop using HEAD requests entirely and replace them with Range based GET requests. A Range GET (Range: bytes=0-0) retrieves only the first byte of the file while still returning the correct Content Range header, which includes the full file size. This avoids downloading multi-megabyte files while completely bypassing the broken HEAD handling on the server. The updated Javascript functions (doesFileExist(urlToFile)  & GetFileSize(urlToFile) ) now reliably detect file existence and size without being affected by the hosting provider's HEAD response corruption.
  Fixed  2026-05-30 (Website, current_session.htm,  javascipt)

Small Defects

• 'Pause Job ' button is not pausing Reduced Folder Analysis (post-session).  The Pause Button should pass the analysis of reduced folder, pausing at the end of the current image until resume button is clicked, but it is not working. To be fixed in AstroMain 3.82.7  Investigating shows that JobPause=True' is recognised, call to CheckForPauseLock(), but the script doesn't pause as the Job no longer runs on the aThread. Fixed in AstroMain 3.82.7, new handing added to CheckForPauseLock( ) that calls new routine 'WaitForResume()'. New handling also added to 'ResumeJob().
  Fixed  2026-05-30 (AstroMain 3.82.7)
   
• 'Greenhouse Pictures' are being only partially drawn (post-session).  After fixing a issue that caused the Greenhouse Picture to not be generated at all (see the Minor Issue ticket above) it was then found that the picture was only partially drawn, in particular the yellow frames to greenhouse outline and subsequent text and traffic light elements weren''t drawn for the second and subsequent calls to GreenhousePicture.Draw().  Exception messages point to the offending code section
     Using Pen as yellowPan
    gx2.DrawLine(Pen, LeftX, RidgeY, RightX, RidgeY)   End Using
The issue is caused by the Using Pen block disposing  'Pen' and thus 'yellowPen' upon leaving the block.  This results in an exception upon the next execution of the block when it needs to use the 'yellowPen'.  Fixed in AstroMain 3.82.7 by removing the 'Using' block and using the 'yellowPen' directly :
    gx2.DrawLine(yellowPen, LeftX, RidgeY, RightX, RidgeY)
  Fixed  2026-05-30 (AstroMain 3.82.7)

Continuous Improvement

• Modify AstroMain's MagGraphs/MagnitudePlotter behaviour so that points marked '?' are not used in the creation of splined line. Certain magnitude points that are deemed questionable and are marked in database with a '?' should be plotted but not used in creation of spline line.  Implemented in AstroMain 3.82.8.
  Done  2026-05-31 (AstroMain 3.82.8)
   
• Redact and remove original TDays / Light Curve Plotting routines. The graph facility provided by original TDays / Light Curve Plotting routines (BuildLightCurve() & PlotLightCurve() ) are now available in MagnitudePlotter tool, using a Legacy Mode. Once MagntiudePlotter graphs are deemed to be a replaceable match to old graphs the original routines can be redacted/removed. To implement in AstroMain 3.82.8+.
  Done  2026-05-31 (AstroMain 3.82.8)
   
• Introduce new Astrometric Tools,  Database and Graph Plotting Support for leveraging maximum results from historic and ongoing Neaby Star observations.  Images of nearby stars such as Barnards Star and 61 Cygnii have been collected on an ongoing basis for some 20 years. For sereval years the images were diligentally analysed, making astrometric measurements and plotting the data to produce graphs shows proper motion and parallax movement. Astrometric measurements were conducted in AstroMain using CCDSoft/TheSky, with results saved to flat files and collated and plotted in Excel.   Later on a GA based tool (TrigParallax) was developed to create scientificallty valid best fit loci through the data and derive best fit parallax and proper motion values, and determine a 'backyard' estimate of the distance to these nearby stars.  This work was manually challenging to keep on top of and was eventually dropped.  Around the same time work on analysing and graphing Variable Stars also significantly reduced.  Although analysis was put on hold, image collection has continued in the hope that one day I might come back to work on these projects.  In the last 4 months a database, and graphing tools have been developed for transients and variable stars that streamline the entire process for Variable Stars.  It is proposed to now put effort into creating a streamlined process for analysis and graphing of astrometric data collected on Nearby Stars. This will include modifications to AstroMain, the creation of an Astrometry database, changes to AstroVma (AstroStars) and to TrigParallax. To implemented over the next few months
  New Feature in Progress 2026-07-30 (AstroMain 3.83+, AstroVma 1.0, TrigParallax 1.3)

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